General 'Notes. 
Two Corrections. — In an article which appeared in the July number of 
‘The Auk’ I described at some length a peculiar process of regurgitation 
employed by the Flicker in feeding its young, believing — and indeed 
remarking at the time — that the habit was unknown or at least unrecorded. 
It seems, however, that it had been previously observed by Mrs. Olive 
Thorne Miller who published an account of it in 1890 in the ‘Atlantic 
Monthly,’ the article being afterwards (in 1892) republished in a collec- 
tion of essays entitled ‘Little Brothers of the Air.’ 
It is a pity that writers like Mrs. Miller — gifted with rare powers of 
observation and blessed with abundant opportunities for exercising them 
— cannot be induced to record at least the more important of their dis- 
coveries in some accredited scientific journal, instead of scattering them 
broadcast over the pages of popular magazines or newspapers, or ambush- 
ing them in books with titles such as that just quoted. But an oppor- 
tunity for delivering a properly frank and telling homily on this sad evil is 
unfortunately denied me on the present occasion, for some one of these 
writers might be unkind enough to point the moral of a second admission 
which I am about to make, viz., that my announcement, in the last num- 
ber of ‘The Auk,’ of the capture in Georgia, by Mr. Worthington, of two 
specimens of the Ipswich Sparrow, proves to have been anticipated in a 
previous issue (Vol. VII, April, 1890, pp. 21 1, 212) of the same journal. 
It is needless to say that this fact had quite escaped my memory — as it 
had also, apparently, that of our usually vigilant editors — and I was 
further thrown off my guard by Mr. Worthington’s statement that, as far 
as he was aware, his birds had never been reported. This assurance — 
unquestionably given in good faith — affords a striking as well as amusing 
instance of the fallibility of human memory, for the record just cited was 
made by Mr. Worthington himself . — William Brewster, Cambridge , 
Mass . Auk X.Ottt, 1893 p 300, 
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